The present invention relates to a connector, and more particularly to a connector that includes a common ground connection means to have all ground wires connected thereto and therefore effectively reduces noise interference and protects good data transmission.
Connectors that are widely used with computers and video products generally include a steel case and a plastic body. The steel case covers a front part of the plastic body. The plastic body is provided at rear outer surfaces with two rows of connection terminals, rear ends of which are connected to a flat cable via a link plate. Connectors with such type of structure are large and occupy increased space, and are usually used with general desktop computers. The use of the link plate to connect the signal wires to the connection terminals also reduces the transmission speed. Another problem with the conventional connectors is they have separate ground wires that form multiple noise interference sources.
To solve these problems, there is developed a connector having a link plate for transferring signals. FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective of such conventional connector. As shown, the connector includes a steel case 1, a plastic body 2, and a link plate 3. The steel case 1 covers a front part of the plastic body 2 and the link plate 3 is connected to a rear part of the plastic body 2.
The plastic body 2 is provided at the rear part with upper and lower staggered connection terminals 21 that extend rearward from the plastic body 2. Two side walls of the plastic body 2 extend rearward and have a guide groove 23 provided at their respective inner wall surface. Each guide groove 23 is provided with a retaining hole 24.
The link plate 3 is provided at two lateral sides with retaining projections 31 corresponding to the retaining holes 24 in the guide grooves 23 of the plastic body 2, so that the link plate 3 may be slid into the guide grooves 23 to locate therebetween and be retained in place by engagement of the retaining projections 31 into the retaining holes 24. The link plate 3 is provided at upper and lower front surfaces with contacts 32 corresponding to the connection terminals 21 on the plastic body 2, and at a rear side with a bus-bar socket 33 for a plug 41 of a bus bar 4 to insert thereinto. When the link plate 3 is inserted to the rear part of the plastic body 2, some of the contacts 32 on the link plate 3 electrically contact with the connection terminals 21 on the plastic body 2.
Bus wires in the bus bar 4 are arranged corresponding to positions provided in the bus-bar plug 41. The bus-bar plug 41 is plugged into the bus-bar socket 33, such that bus wires of the bus bar 4 separately correspond to the contacts 32 at the front side of the link plate 3 while the contacts 32 are electrically connected to the connection terminals 21 on the plastic body 2. Since the bus-bar plug 41 may be freely unplugged from the socket 33, the bus bar 4 could be replaced when necessary to permit repeated use of the connector.
Although the above-described conventional connector can be advantageously used, it still has the following drawbacks and therefore requires improvement:
1. Bus wires of the bus bar 4 are very thin and tend to break or bend when the bus-bar plug 41 is frequently plugged and unplugged in and from the socket 33. Any broken or bent bus wire in the bus bar 4 would cause poor electrical connection and necessitates replacement of the whole expensive bus bar 4 and that is apparently not economical.
2. The use of the link plate 3 as a signal communication interface in the connector for all data to be transmitted via the link plate 3 on the one hand prevents the whole connector from being miniaturized and on the other hand increases the data transmission distance to cause attenuation of signal and slowed transmission of data.
3. The existence of the link plate 3 contributes to increased possibilities of noise interference to cause confused system and troubles in use of the connector.
It is therefore desirable to develop a connector in which the link plate is omitted and replaced with an insertion plate and a common ground connection means, so that the connector has reduced volume and manufacture cost and is capable of providing increased transmission speed and isolating noise interference.